


Three's a Crowd

by Manickmondays



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, GTA!AU, M/M, Multi, Poly!Ryan, Pre-OT3, Somewhat less poly!Gavin, real fr eewood heavy, really contrived star trek:tng references, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 20:23:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5941879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manickmondays/pseuds/Manickmondays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with a joke and a mistake, and ended with Jeremy waking up on Ryan’s couch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three's a Crowd

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've never written Jeremy, never written a poly ship, and never written a ship other than Freewood, so... be gentle, if you could.   
> And I apologize to fans of TNG, and not fans of TNG.

It started with a joke, and a mistake.

It started when Geoff gets got, and Jack’s first action as acting leader of the Fake AH Crew was to put Ryan in charge. He’s smart enough to realize leading isn’t necessarily where he excels, and that he makes a _spectacular_ second-in-command. When they got Geoff back, Jack offhandedly mentioned that maybe Ryan should be the de facto leader if that were to ever happen again, and that somehow led to Geoff calling Jack his ‘number one’ in the most horrid British accent Gavin’s ever heard in his whole life for the next few months.

And then it only spiraled. Drunk fights happened over who was which crewmember of the Enterprise-D, Gavin refused to talk to anyone for a week when Geoff called him too dumb to be Data, Ryan bought a _fucking_ Bat’leth when it was decided he could be no one but a Klingon, and by the time they welcomed Jeremy into the crew proper, the joke still hadn’t been totally forgotten.

Then, of course, Jeremy lied to Geoff about his age, and let it slip. They were planning for a heist, and Geoff was lamenting lack of backup for Jeremy, seeing as anyone who could was either injured or being used elsewhere. Jeremy protested, claiming that he could take care of himself; he was twenty-four after all, and halfway through his sentence he realized he had lied about his age when he had gotten hired, and by the look in his eyes, Geoff remembered that. Geoff grumbled something about him being a vampire or a liar, and that he didn’t know which was worse, before marking down Jeremy’s position on the map. Ryan had then snatched the marker out of Geoff’s hands and turned the little J next to his X into an R and scribbled out his own initial to put Jeremy with the bulk of the crew. He muttered something from behind his mask about Jeremy having his whole life ahead of him and nobody dared question him. Come heist time, Ryan got pinned down in a hail of bullets and cop cars, and everyone admitted that no one but Ryan would have survived it.

It started with a joke and a mistake, and ended with Jeremy waking up on Ryan’s couch.

Not that that was where he knew he was, in fact all he processed when he woke up was that this was _not_ his apartment, and that last he knew he was passed out in a chopper with a bullet in his arm. His jacket was folded neatly on the side table, hat and gun laid rather delicately beside it. He tried to sit himself up to grab his things and get the hell out of Dodge, but his arm screamed in protest and he fell back to the couch with a huffed out _fuck_.

Well, this was going to be fun.

He tried to use his other arm, but he had slept on it odd and it wasn’t moving him anywhere, if the staticky feeling in his fingers told him anything. He considered rolling off the couch, but that wasn’t going to get him anywhere and so he resigned himself to staying on the couch and awaiting whatever fate came to him. The shifting had disturbed the cat purring away on his chest, and he had taken the lump of warmth as one of his own cats, but as the cat scampered away he noticed that this was neither of his cats; he most decidedly did _not_ have a tortoiseshell. Ah yes, he had woken up in a strange living room. That was why the cat wasn’t his.

There was a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and he scrambled to grab his gun, ignoring the shooting pain in his arm in his rush to defend himself, hands shaking as he trained the gun towards where he thought the movement had come from. He saw it again, more clearly this time, and he found out exactly _what_ he had seen. It was Ryan’s mask, blue eyes standing out from the black. Jeremy had been with the crew for a good year and a half now and Ryan still kind of scared him, despite the fact he’d heard the man flub a hundred times over the comms. Ryan had never taken his mask off around anyone other than the main crew, and even since Jeremy had _joined_ the main crew he’d refused to do it. His privacy was clearly very important to him, so Jeremy understood, but it didn’t mean the man didn’t still kind of terrify him.

The mask had disappeared, presumably behind the bit of wall and Jeremy was finally able to process that it meant he was in _Ryan’s_ apartment, and that didn’t really bode well.

And then shit just got weirder. He heard footsteps and swung the gun towards the sound, trying his damndest to keep his finger off the trigger. It was probably some… murder accomplice, coming to chloroform him so Ryan could do his work. Or, apparently a quite tired, disheveled looking Gavin, scrubbing at his eyes. He looked disturbingly different from when he was at work, hair all flat and pushed back from the sunglasses shoved up on his head like a ritzy headband. He hadn’t even bothered buttoning up his shirt, and it contrasted rather amusingly with the sweatpants he had on. ‘Armani and sweatpants’ was not a look Jeremy ever thought he’d see on, well, anyone really, but least of all Gavin.

“’Morning. Glad to see you’re doing alright.” Gavin’s eyes flicked to the bandage on his arm with a little nod.

“Uh, yeah, good morning to you too.” He wasn’t terribly sure what Gavin was _doing_ here, but the whole morning had been confusion, so he just let the trend continue.

“It’d be a little better without you wavin’ that gun around, yeah?” Jeremy started and scrambled to put the gun back on the table, finally sitting up now that his arm decided to not be asleep. “Appreciate it, thanks.”

“Um… why… why am I here?”

“You got shot, and Ryan brought you back here to patch you up and make sure you were ok.”

“Isn’t that Caleb’s job?” Gavin snorted and ground the heel of his palm into his eye.

“That’s what I told him, but he insisted and, well, I’ve just learned to accept what he wants sometimes. Hope it doesn’t have anything to do with that bloody _stupid_ joke, because I really thought we were done with that.” Jeremy didn’t know, need, or want to know what joke Gavin was talking about, especially if it led to some sort of bizarrely unfounded protective urge on Ryan’s part. Gavin looked away to squint at the bit of wall that Ryan had kept appearing from behind. “Stop _hiding_ you bloody baby. And for God’s sake take the mask off!” Ryan stepped out from behind the bit of wall, shoulders slumped.

“But he-“

“Yeah, I know, you’ve never done it before, but he’s been working with us for long enough. We’ve even properly hazed him, you can trust him.” Ah, that was what the eating contest prank was about. “He’s in our apartment, Ryan, you’ve placed enough trust in him to do that.” Ryan grumbled something behind the mask but reached up to pull it off despite his displeasure and oh-

He wasn’t supposed to be _hot_. His hair had begun falling out of his ponytail and was framing his face, his incredibly handsome, rugged face. _Damn._ That just wasn’t fair. Even with the rough circles of greasepaint around his eyes he was something else, angular and slightly stubbly and- He was staring wasn’t he? By the looks on both Ryan and Gavin’s faces he was, and that made things pretty awkward pretty fast. Gavin coughed to clear the air and turned to Ryan.

“Go get that paint washed off and then come make me breakfast.”

“Not with that tone.” Ryan tucked the mask under his arm and raised an eyebrow. “I’m not dealing with your sass this early in the morning. I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

“Alright then, _please_ go get the paint washed off and make me breakfast.”

“There we go.” And he strode off to do so. Silence hung for a moment before they both heard water running, and that seemed to satisfy Gavin, so he sat down on the arm of the couch and started cooing at what Jeremy could only hope was the cat. After a bit of cajoling the cat leapt up into his lap and settled down, as if it were pure coincidence it was there in the first place.

“You met Patches, yeah?”

“Asleep on my chest when I woke up.” Gavin chuckled softly and scratched behind the cat’s ears.

“He’s awfully cuddly like that. Don’t think you’ll be meeting Lloyd any time soon; she’s kind of skittish, but if you’re ever over again she might warm up to you.” An odd look crossed his face as he spoke, and Jeremy was hard pressed to make any meaning out of it, or anything in the situation for that matter.

“Sp-speaking of being over here, um… what exactly are you doing in Ryan’s apartment?” He wasn’t really planning on mentioning it, just getting the hell out of here and maybe finding his way back to his apartment but the casual intimacy Gavin moved around the space in was proving to be too strange to ignore.

“Well, I mean, I live here so that’s what I’m doing here.”

“You live here?” Jeremy leaned forward, confused.

“Yeah, ‘s generally what people do when they’ve been dating for a while.”

“You two are _dating_?” Patches leapt off Gavin’s lap at Jeremy’s shout and Gavin stared at him in disbelief.

“You cannot have not realized. I thought we tended to make it pretty obvious.”

“Not anymore.” Ryan’s voice called from the bathroom, followed shortly by the water turning off, “He came into the main crew right after Geoff banned all, and I’m quoting here, ‘gross couple-y shit’ from work.” Ryan was still patting at his face with a towel when he came back, and the mask was no longer tucked under his arm. “It’s pretty reasonable he wouldn’t know.”

“But I thought bevs didn’t count as work, and we’ve definitely gone out since Geoff said that.”

“I wasn’t invited to any of that.” Jeremy piped up, and the pair turned away from each other, as if they had forgotten the subject of discussion was in their living room.

“If you were a part of the job, you’re always welcome at bevs, even if Geoff isn’t explicit about it.” Gavin got a look in his eye and smirked softly, “And you can get whatever you want, ‘cause Geoff pays for it, but usually gets too drunk to do anything other than pay his tab when he gets it.” Ryan had slung an arm around Gavin’s waist, laughing to himself and shaking his head, like he was remembering something.

“Yeah, I _like_ this job, I’d rather not rip off my boss, especially after lying to him.”

“If you’re still worried about that, don’t be. Geoff tends to forgive, or forget, whichever comes first.” Ryan put in quietly, “Dishonesty about who we are is at the heart of what we do. No one minds if who you say you are is a little different from the truth.” Gavin hummed thoughtfully.

“This isn’t even my real hair color.” He ran a hand through it with a displeased sigh. “Gonna have to bleach it soon.” He turned to Ryan, who cocked an eyebrow at him, “Speaking of things you have to do-”

“Yes?”

“You didn’t have to say anything, but never mind that. Speaking of things you have to do, weren’t you going to make us breakfast?” Ryan shook his head.

“I was going to make _you_ breakfast. But I’m not starving anytime soon, so I think it’s only fair you make me something.” Gavin opened his mouth to say something, likely something cheeky by the look on his face, but shut it when Ryan tacked on, “And don’t think about ruining something on purpose so I just have to do it, I know your tricks.” Gavin scowled but got up nonetheless, grabbing Ryan’s hand and dragging him away.

“I’ll get you something too.” Ryan said in Jeremy’s direction, and he didn’t have time to say that he’s not all that hungry before the couple disappeared into the kitchen.

Ryan pulled Gavin into his arms as soon as they were alone in the kitchen, placing a soft kiss to his lips.

“You have to promise not to burn my toast this time.” Ryan leaned back a bit to flick the switch on the kettle.

“That was one time, love!”

“Yes, but the building had to be evacuated.” Gavin rolled his eyes and twisted out of Ryan’s grip, opening the cabinets when he was free.

“Hey, Rye can I ask you a favor, of sorts?” He had stopped midway through opening the cabinets to face Ryan. Ryan popped out from behind the fridge door, eyebrow cocked.

“Depends on the favor, but probably.” Gavin closed the cabinets and turned around, staring at his feet. He was chewing his lip, fingers drumming at his arm, and the concern written on his face had Ryan closing the fridge and folding his arms.

“Can you… Could you maybe not… bring him around again?” His words had a sickly, guilty little twist to them.

“Why? What’s up?”

Gavin continued like he didn’t hear Ryan, “I’m not saying you can’t be friends with him, or even care about his safety I just… not here.”

“Gavin, what’s wrong- what’s going on?” He stepped closer, reaching out to gently touch Gavin’s arm.

“You have to have seen the way he looks at me- at _us_. And…” Gavin’s face screwed up and he flinched away from Ryan’s touch, “And the way I look at him. I don’t want any of us to do anything we regret, and to ruin the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Ryan gave a little wry smile at that, he never considered himself the best thing to happen to anyone.

“I have an idea. We have some food,” As if on cue, the kettle shut itself off with a click, “get him back home, and then we can really talk about this. Sound good?” Gavin nodded after a couple seconds and Ryan grinned, leaning forward to press a kiss to his cheek. Gavin smiled softly and surged forward for a proper kiss, startling Ryan a little, but he accepted the kiss gratefully.

They ate in relative silence after delivering the extra piece of toast, scrambled egg and spare, chipped mug of coffee to Jeremy, still trying to process their discussion without leaping to conclusions. It was tense; more tense than a breakfast had been in a while, and neither of them liked it at all. They left too many things unsaid, even if it was just for the time being, and Gavin couldn’t contain his sigh of relief when Ryan got up to go check on Jeremy’s bandages.

He didn’t even bother getting up, instead sitting there and staring at his no longer steaming mug of tea, straining to overhear their quiet, idle conversation. He didn’t even care what they were saying really, it was just better than the nervous quiet of breakfast. In fact, the only real thing of any note that he heard was that Jeremy lived within walking distance from them, something he realized once he actually _knew_ where their apartment was.

Gavin felt horrid watching him leave, because he had clearly sensed the tension that had cropped up, and might have figured it had to do with him. He wasn’t wrong, but it still made a little sick knot of guilt twist in Gavin’s stomach. It wasn’t until Ryan had shut the door after giving Jeremy some final instructions on how to keep his wound clean and healing that Gavin even released the breath he had been holding.

“Do you wanna come to the couch? No good discussion ever happens at a kitchen table.” Ryan’s hand on his shoulder was gentle; his smile easy and encouraging, but it just simply didn’t help.

“If that’s where you’re headed I don’t think I have a choice.” Ryan laughed lightly and let his hand slip from Gavin’s shoulder as he stood.

As soon as they sat on the couch, Patches leapt up into Gavin’s lap and quickly settled into a cozy loaf, purring away. Gavin buried his fingers behind the cat’s ears and he purred louder, getting more relaxed, and Gavin wished he could follow the cat’s model. Ryan let them sit there in silence for a while; he didn’t push Gavin to talk if he didn’t want to, and he _really_ didn’t want to yet.

And how could he? He felt guilty, and sick, and just torn up about the whole thing. He’d really not so much as _looked_ at anyone else since he and Ryan had gotten together, and now he’d cocked that all up. He didn’t have anywhere good to start either. Probably not good to come out of the gate with something like _I love you but our coworker is really good looking and I can’t trust myself to act like an adult in a monogamous relationship_.

“I’m… I’m gonna start by saying I’m not mad at you or anything. I’m actually glad you brought it up quickly, if you thought we needed to talk about it.”

“I… I knew it wasn’t a good idea to let it sit, this bein’ the first time he’s been around and all. Was kinda when I realized it might be a problem.” Ryan sighed, face darkening a little for a moment, the first Gavin had really seen it do so since he had brought up his issue.

“That’s the thing, Gav, it doesn’t have to be a problem.”

“Well, yeah, I’ll get over it eventually. How do you think I survived being a teenager?” Ryan gave a laugh that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and it threw Gavin’s heart into palpitations. Now _Ryan_ wasn’t even being calm anymore and something rather panicked and _it’s all gone to shit I’ve ruined something here_ started running through his head.

“That’s not what I meant. I- we’ve talked about the fact I’ve been in relationships with multiple people before, right?”

Gavin tried not to let his apprehension leach into his voice, but he failed rather miserably, “Yeah, I do. Said I’d thought about it before, and maybe with the right people but… where’re you going with this, Ryan?”

“Well, I… I mean it doesn’t have to be a problem because I’ve maybe… thought about the possibility of adding him to our relationship.” Ryan folded his hands in his lap like he hadn’t just said something radical and chewed at his lip absently.

“You can’t be serious, Ryan. You’ve only just taken your mask off around him, how do you trust him enough to even consider doing this?” His voice was tight, strained. He was trying not to be too accusatory, but he just couldn’t believe that Ryan could feel like that. It had taken months and months for Ryan to slowly open up to him, and he still felt that there were parts of himself Ryan kept private.

“The mask helped keep me distant. So that I didn’t end up hurting you. I realized it might be… an issue, like you did, and I did whatever I could to keep it from escalating. And then, of course he had to be so fucking young, and get _shot_ and I wasn’t about to let him bleed out on the pavement like that.”

“… You are serious.”

“I’m serious about the fact that I’ve considered it, but if you don’t think he’s one of the ‘right people’ we can drop the whole thing and we can stay the way we are. That is an eventuality I am more than prepared for.” Ryan had lost some of the tension in his face, though he still seemed a little conflicted.

“Don’t… don’t get too excited or anything, but I’m not,” Gavin sighed, shifting enough to disturb Patches and send him scampering away. “I’m not totally adverse to the idea.” Ryan laughed, much more genuinely.

“That’s a start.”

“Well, I’mean, since you told me all that I’ve- iunno, kind of thought about the whole thing? Came to the conclusion that I could do that, if it felt right. Don’t quite know if this feels right yet, but it doesn’t feel totally _wrong_ either.”

“That’s kind of how it goes the first time. You don’t think you could ever love more than one person, and then you kind of do?” He chuckled, small smile playing at his lips. “And it’s weird for a while, but then all of a sudden it’s three a.m. and you’re squished between two people and that’s when it clicks.”

“And what if it doesn’t click? What if he just feels like a third wheel? I mean, you always got together with people at the same time, yeah?”

“Not all the time no. Last one I was in was kind of like this. I came in a bit late, you could say. They had been together for a little while and then invited me in.”

Gavin sighed and ran a hand through his hair, forgetting the sunglasses there and jumping a bit as they clattered to the floor. He heard the clack of claws on hardwood skittering away and he felt a little more justified in his jumpiness. “So it’s worked before.”

“I mean, we broke up, but yeah. It’s sort of easy to…” He cast about for the right word, “play catch up. The time doesn’t really mean a lot if you’re all comfortable with each other.”

“But that’s the thing, love, is you took so long to open up to me.” It was months unto years of whispered confessions late at night, of things he’d done, and things he’d seen; things that scared him, things he was proud of, things that scared him that he was proud of. It was work, it was rough, and it had been slowly picking at the shell knowing in an instant all those pieces could come back together. “I don’t understand how you could play catch up like that.”

“A lot of patience on his part, and trust on mine, I suppose.” Gavin still wasn’t totally convinced and it must have showed, “Hey, Gav, I don’t think we have to rush into this at all. We _shouldn’t_ really rush into it, honestly. We wait, give the both of us to make sure that this is something we want, and then go about seeing if it’s something _he_ wants. We can take all the time in the world with this. We can never do it at all and stay with just each other and that would make me the happiest damned man in San Andreas. If anything I’m walking proof you can be happy with anyone.”

Gavin sighed softly and grabbed Ryan’s hand, tangling their fingers together. “I wanna find what makes us happy, no matter what that is.” Ryan brought the hand to his lips and placed a kiss to his knuckles with a smile.

“I think that’s a good plan, dear.” Ryan looped an arm around Gavin’s shoulders and drew him close, kissing his temple and letting them sit in silence for a while.

“Hey, Rye?”

“Mmm?”

“You wanna go find a building to stand on and use those package delivering drones as target practice till we have to go to work?” The sheer absurdity of the idea had Ryan perking up.

“They’re using those now?”

“Releasing a fleet of 500 over Los Santos today.” Ryan sat up a bit, bringing Gavin with him, the both of them with broad grins on their faces.

“Whoever gets more buys dinner for the next five dates?” Gavin could never pass up the opportunity for a bet, especially one this fun, and Ryan knew it.

“You’re on.”

**Author's Note:**

> So let me start off by explaining the TNG reference. There's an episode called "The Bonding" where Worf becomes this kid's... protector? Older brother? It's not quite clear, but it doesn't matter really. Worf is responsible for this kid's wellbeing, and the kid's name is, you may have guessed it, Jeremy. With Ryan being Worf, it only felt right to take this joke a hundred times too far and turn it into a fic. And now we have this thing in the world.  
> Before anyone asks, though, there likely will not be a direct sequel to this. However, if I write more FAHC Jerevinwood, it will likely be in this 'verse, so keep that in mind. (I'll tell you all it goes great, they get together and are very happy all their cats love each other.)  
> Wanna come talk to me, send prompts or just shoot me a follow? I'm on tumblr at [m4d-m4x](http://m4d-m4x.tumblr.com/)


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